MacXM / News: Recent posts

MacXM's primary avenue for tech support was the XMPCR development forum at XMFan.com. Given the scary message that's up there today, the future of XMFan is a bit in doubt.

I am going to wait and see for a few days what the situation with XMFan (or XM411 or whatever) is, and if it doesn't look like it will be a suitable place for providing MacXM support, then an alternative forum will be provided.... read more

This release is a little early since the song rating protocol is currently broken for older versions (the URL changed). It's a doozy.

1. Change the song rating protocol URL
2. Add checkmarks to the mute menu items
3. Make sure mute items are disabled on power-off
4. Don't put up the main window until we're really ready
5. Add lots and lots of tool-tips
6. (by popular demand) add start-up check for update
7. Add menu item for channel guide page (distinct from home page)
8. Bounce the icon only when new search matches are found
9. Get rid of the rating button. Just slide the slider and when the song changes, the previous one will be rated.

1.11 is out, along with a major redesign of the site.

1. Some changes to URLs embedded in the About dialog buttons

2. Filter the device list to only show devices controlled by the FTDI driver. Automatically power-up if the list has only one device in it.

3. "Smart" mute lets you mute only the current song (or ad).

1.10 is a bit early compared to the usual weekend schedule. It once and for all insures the NIB corruption issue that caused some tables to have missing columns is finally put to bed and adds the new Status Item ("add to menu bar") and menu.

1.9 is out and has some minor improvements: The dock icon bounces on search matches; the title column of the search results was missing and has been put back; there is now a column in the channel grid representing the percentage of time you listen to that channel (you can sort on it too); and there are menu items / hot keys to add the current artist and title to the search configuration.

The big feature everyone's been waiting for - artist / title searching is now done. Open the search drawer and type in your favorite artist and/or titles, and the results tab will show you whenever and wherever matched songs are playing.

The matching uses fuzzy-logic string comparison, so spelling doesn't have to be perfect (from you OR for when XM truncates). It does mean you may get some strange matches from time to time, however.

Well, I promised the search functionality for 1.7, but instead I built in the XMTracker. For those of you who don't know, this is what sets the signature line in the xmfan.com forums to show what you're listening to.

Those of you use to weekly releases may have noticed there wasn't one last weekend. I'm doing some work on the house lately and haven't had as much time to dedicate as I have in the past. Don't worry, though, there is an important feature coming -- the seeker drawer (like the favorite artist functionality of the "Brand X" PCR software).

After that, I believe there will be some improvements to the AppleScript functionality, but I'm sort of running out of places to take MacXM. Your feedback, ideas, feature requests, even bug reports and support requests are most welcome.

Version 1.6 is out. It re-connects up the code to allow sorting the channel grid by other columns, and adds the ability to password-lock the filter drawers (a form of parental control).

1.5 has been released. The big difference is the new feature that lets you rate songs.

Minor bug fixes and a new brushed metal icon

1.3 has been released. This is a major feature release. Tons of new stuff has been added, including integration with XMFan.com, Google, XM's own channel home pages, multiple filter sets, a version checker in the about screen, and the beginings of AppleScript support.

1.2 has been released, featuring a vastly improved ChannelSurfer, among other things.

1.1 has been released. It has real signal strength indicators, a memory drawer and a compact mode.

Watchers of CVS will have noticed a big refactoring of the RadioCommander class. This is paving the way for a new ChannelSurfer class that will make the UI a lot more dynamic and responsive.

Welcome, SourceForge. The 1.0 source (CVS) and binaries have been added. This will be the new home for the project for the forseeable future.